Ask Giles: I'm a sub (f) but I want to switch with my boyfriend

"He wants me to lead, and he wants
 to thoroughly please me...."

I'm starting an Ask Giles column, mostly posting -- with permission -- conversations I've had on reddit. 

A lady who normally identifies as a sub sent me a long question:

I'm in a bind, and I wonder if you would be kind enough to share some advice with me.

Essentially, I'm a very sexually submissive and service-oriented woman with a fair amount of experience in D/s relationships, and I'm now dating a man who is kinky but doesn't entirely identify with the bdsm scene.

He hasn't let me be completely submissive with him yet, but we're new, and sex for me is amazing with him regardless. He's recently told me he wants me to switch and be more dominant with him. He is a great lover, and he can switch to be just dominant enough for me (minimum), mostly when I ask for pain play or rough sex, but he's said he doesn't think he can be totally sexually satisfied without also, at least occasionally, me initiating for him to be submissive to me.

He wants me to lead, and he wants to thoroughly please me....

We met without knowing anything about each other's kinks until several dates in, and now we've been dating for a few months and finding a way to make this work has been a frequent conversation topic. The thought of us being fundamentally mismatched just because we both enjoy being submissive is really heartbreaking for me, and I want so badly to make him happy.

I love service, pain play, bondage, collars, rules & protocol, and I've been in 24/7 D/s relationships. I feel I'm so far to the extreme sub side of the submissive-dominant spectrum that it seems so far out of my element to be dominant in any sexual context.

In work and other social settings, I can delegate and take leadership roles when I need to get things done a certain way, though I don't prefer to.

I've been in enough scenes and seen enough dommes in action to have ideas of things I COULD do, but it is almost a turn-off for me to take/use power and control rather than to give it. Even receiving oral sex, which he loves to give, is hard for me to enjoy without feeling like I have too much control/privilege/attention unless I'm restrained or 'forced' to receive it.

I do love sex, I love the physical sensations of sex, I love physical attention and affection, and I do love being adored and cared for. It's just so easy to enjoy it as a submissive, and seems so hard to relax into it in any other role. I want to give him what he wants, and I feel like I don't know how to be or think or feel in a dominant role.
Can you give me any advice from your own experience to help me satisfy his need to switch? Any help would be appreciated.

Note how they met -- "We met without knowing anything about each other's kinks until several dates in" -- which is so common an experience, I'm starting to believe in kinkdar.

I responded:

I'd be very surprised if you can't find a way to make this work! Fetishes tend to be a bit random, but dynamic is inherent in the person, and you two people were together before discussing kink.

It sounds as if his urges are actually submissive rather than bottomish. He's not after particular play, so much as an experience of a particular dynamic.

If this is correct, you don't need to play dom or emulate the dominatrixes you've seen. He's not a scene person anyway. He will measure his experience against what he's previously done, not what he's seen on xtube. In fact, I wonder whether the best approach might be to take off your kinky hat and think just self-centered.

In my self help books I keep harking back to the concept of the Roman dominatrix. She isn't actually, kinky, she just happens to own a male slave, which lets her get her way. Don't think "dom", just think "in control".

It follows that you need to work on just being comfortable giving orders. Intellectually, you must know how mind-blowing it is for him to have his kink satisfied, so your block is at the gut-reaction level. I think you can get around this by initially emphasizing the service side of things. Forget erotic for an hour or so, and just get him cleaning your apartment, sorting your book collection, whatever, with you not domming him, just giving orders.

Another thought - an alternative, or something that might also help - is that you could try setting up experiences that pushed both your sets of buttons. For example, imagine if he was locked into a male chastity device - there are ways of making this a timed thing, outside both your control - and had a butt plug in (thus ticking the anal play box). Anything sensual you did to him would be at once a service to him and a torment, and one of the best ways of getting him close to orgasm would be by letting him go down on you.

I'll send you a copy of my Roman Dominatrix book. It's not quite what you're looking for because it assumes the lady reader is vanilla. However, you might find it's general thrust useful.

She responded:

I love your suggestions of removing myself from the idea that I need to "dom" for him to be satisfied and to begin with service-oriented submission. I have been bossy and self-centered in non-kink contexts before and it's a great idea to try it with him outside of the bedroom.

He will be traveling for work for the next few ways, so while I anticipate his return, I can be thinking about other creative ways of making sensual pleasure "at once a service to him and a torment," as you said so well.

I asked him to write out some short fantasies for me while he is away, and for me to do the same. I presented it as a way to tease each other, but I'm hoping to gain more insight from what he writes on the type of experience he would be looking for as a submissive.
Thank you again for your time. It really helped me to hear your perspective. :) I'll let you know how it goes.

I'll be interested to see how this one plays out...

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Don't resign yourself to just getting off on other people's adventures! When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her. 

New cover for Roman Dominatrix

I'm upgrading my covers! Here's the next one:

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Don't resign yourself to just getting off on other people's adventures! When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her. 

Lifestyle Relationships: How to turn funishment into real punishment

 Over on Locked Men, a friend messaged me:

So you are in FLR, me too. But my problem is that my gf only spanks me for sexual pleasure and I want her to punish me too when I have been bad or done something stupid. Just a hard spanking so I can´t sit down for a few days and remember not to be bad again.... I want it to be punishment only, nothing I will like or want again. How to do?

His lady, it seems is quite happy to be in charge -- in another pm he told me that she already liked Femdom and FLR when they met -- but that spankings are only ever erotic, and he wants to live under discipline.

Our demerit counter!

The simplest answer is to just ask. 

However, he may get an immediate "No!", not because she is averse to punishing him, but because maintaining this kind of discipline is a nuisance.

Either she has to drop what she's doing and punish him -- annoying or impractical if she was busy doing something else and not in a Femdom headspace -- or else she has to remember that he did something wrong, which will just add to her irritation.

So rather than just ask for discipline, my friend would be better to suggest a specific discipline scheme. 

The one that works for us is to have a demerit counter; a clicker counter easily purchased off Amazon. Whenever I annoy Xena, she gives me a demerit. It's usually my responsibility to add it to the counter. The matter is then forgotten until it's punishment time. 

The demerits then have their own logic, and it's much easier for her to blame me for what she's doing to me. This is much better than her having to think back through one or more weeks and decide how good or bad I have been.

(Assuming he's not a physical masochist, he also needs to explain to her that although it excites him to live under the threat of a spanking, a serious spanking is something he's actually scared of, and that she won't be merely rewarding him for bad behavior. He should also encourage her to hit him hard enough to make him flinch. Possibly she needs to use an implement in order to save her hand.

Why punishment that we find sexy works to modify our behavior is another story.)

EDIT: Oh interesting. I got downvoted on Reddit AGAIN. If you do like this little article, please express your approval accordingly.

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Don't resign yourself to just getting off on other people's adventures! When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her. 

So do I need to write a new self help book?

Recent conversations have made me wonder about this.

In days gone by, a lot of forum postings were along the lines of, "Help! How do I introduce my vanilla wife to Femdom??" The Vanilla Dominatrix answers that question: carefully tailored baby steps.

Then posts like this turned up; "I've agreed to dominate my husband. OMG what do I do?" And that's what The Roman Dominatrix is for. It's all about empowering the female partner to get the most out of Femdom. It also plunges the couple straight in at the deep end of power exchange, then phases in the kink.

Now, however, things seemed to have changed. Women seem more open to Femdom, but expect their men to help shape the relationship. The questions now seem focused on making it work.

Hmmm.

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Don't resign yourself to just getting off on other people's adventures! When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her. 

So how easy is it to get women to dominate you when vanilla dating?

...looking back -- I persuaded an inordinate
proportion of my girlfriends to do Femdom

I was dating pre-Internet, pre highly-visible BDSM. Judging from Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden -- which was pretty much all we had -- mainstream women's fantasies rarely stretched to Femdom.

Even so -- looking back -- I persuaded an inordinate proportion of my girlfriends to do Femdom.

I can recall in detail ten girlfriends before Xena. (If you recall, 70% of my past girlfriends didn't really need my penis, and 40% didn't really want it.)

• My first, I never asked. We had some oblique conversations about fantasies. I suspect she wanted me to tie her up.
• One flat out refused to do it. 
• One did it a couple of times but wasn't that interested.
• One did it, really enjoyed it, but was uncomfortable with the idea of "having that kind of power".
• Two did it, really enjoyed it, and cheerfully initiated it again.
• Three enjoyed tying me up whenever I asked -- either it was fine as part of their sexual repertoire, or else they really enjoyed it but needed permission.
• One dommed me once, was pretty incredible -- actually a bit scary -- but I spoiled it by topping from the bottom.

...my kind of girls; strong, adventurous,
broad-minded.

These were all my kind of girls; strong, adventurous, broad-minded. However, none of them could really be described as alternative or connected to the "scene", which barely existed for young people back then.

Even so, all but two of them gave it a go, and six of them seemed to enjoy the basic concept. That's a 60% success rate -- pretty good odds when looking for any sort of compatibility when dating, 

The trick was... wait for it... Just Ask (but without making a fuss).

Looking back, I was an appalling "do-me sub" mainly obsessed with getting tied up -- I didn't know any better!

Had I been more focused on what's in it for her?, the girl that wasn't interested might have enjoyed other Femdom activities, and the one who was good at it would have had an opportunity to explore her own desires rather than mine.

The trick was... wait for it... Just Ask
(but without making a fuss).

And, of course, the Femdom would have been more in all the relationships where it was present.

Now we live in an age where almost everybody knows about BDSM and almost half of women admit to having Femdom fantasies.

So go look for play partners in the Scene if you want, but don't give up on the idea of dating within the vanilla world!

EDIT: Interesting Reddit threads here , here and here.

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Don't resign yourself to just getting off on other people's adventures! When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her. 

From Vanilla to Femdom: Two case studies revealing that the kink was already there

Sometimes vanilla 
couples just turn kinky!

Sometimes vanilla couples just turn kinky. This seems to happen a lot more often than you'd expect as long as the initiating partner doesn't screw up.

Obviously, my Femdom manuals can help you. However, that's because there's already something very basic at work.

To get a handle on this, here are two case studies -- quoted with permission -- of men who used my Femdom manuals to introduce kink to their relationships.

Mr A gets more Femdom than he bargained for

Mr A, anonymous commentator on this blog made some mistakes but through heroic self-discipline managed to ensure that things turned out OK:

I bought both books. Getting Her to be a Vanilla Dominatrix was good, pointed out a lot of things I did wrong early in our relationship.

That made me smile! I put a lot of work into that book. However, interestingly, he preferred my other Femdom guide:

However, The Roman Dominatrix is amazing. Creating that firewall and the psychological aspects of getting her to feel comfortable in the role were especially helpful. Looking forward to seeing how it all works out. Thank you!

That one is certainly simpler and has a consistent theme. However, he asked his wife to read it. Naughty! You're not supposed to do that; your fantasy, you do the work!

He also stored up trouble for himself with another blooper:

I also informed her that I would no longer taking care of myself on my own, but that I would only seek pleasure in her company. No chastity, no kink, just a simple pledge from a husband to a wife.

Though Mr A spins it as vanilla, this crosses the line because it hands over power to her, thus setting up a Femdom dynamic -- great if you want  a Female Led Relationship, not so good if not. Both my books are all about maintaining a kinky safe space behind a firewall to prevent the Femdom leaking out into the relationship.

Naturally, she didn't read my book. However, something interesting happened:

"...dealt with it as you describe a
Servus should."
Buy Getting Her to be a Vanilla Dominatrix!

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A week went by, I was beside myself with want. I felt like a horny teenager again. We had amazing sex for the first time in years.

Assuming she shared this opinion, she obviously liked the power he'd given her. Mr A very wisely shut up about his fantasies and played  a long game:

Two more weeks passed. I remained good to my word. I've never gone that long in my life. I didn't bring up the book. I kind of felt like I was being tested. Like she was waiting for me to get moody, pushy or overly demanding. I stayed true and dealt with it as you describe a Servus should.

This is heroic stuff. If you've not done this, I can tell you from experience that it takes a hell of a lot of maturity! He was rewarded, and through self discipline avoided screwing up:

Then Saturday morning she reveals to me that she's been doing some reading. Needless to say my heart skipped a beat.

Light teasing ensued and she started teasing me/flirting with me throughout the day. 
After amazing sex again the following morning she remarked that I may be in big trouble... 
She's starting to come into her own. Touching me, teasing me throughout the day and evenings. I still kept all my past issues/kinks/etc in check.

"Then last night the dam broke. This woman 
who I love turned into a force of nature." 
Buy Getting Her to be a Vanilla Dominatrix!

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Then last night the dam broke. This woman who I love turned into a force of nature. I've never seen anything like it.

....She informs me... I should be wary because I've created a monster. Frankly I am a little nervous after last night. But I wouldn't have it any other way.
Thank you!

"It wasn't that she didn't
have kinks, she didn't like 
all the bs fetish fantasy."

What's interesting is that she is very obviously enjoying herself. Mr A commented:

...your discussion of the Servus and the mind frame required is what really hit home for me and I think what ultimately did it for her as I put it in practice.

Once she realized that she could be completely self indulgent it was like setting off a powder keg. 

...I considered myself the kinky one, it turns out I completely misjudged her. It wasn't that she didn't have kinks, she didn't like all the bs fetish fantasy that typically comes with the male fantasy. She also didn't think it was safe to share her kinks (I've made a lot of mistakes in our marriage).

She revealed all sorts of exciting things she plans to do to me that had knees buckling. After last night, she woke me up by stroking me and having me take care of her again! AND she says be prepared for another rough night. :)

Power corrupts ;)

So far two obvious factors are at work:

1. Power corrupts -- once she realizes she can be self indulgent, she indulges herself.

2. She already has kinks but needed to feel free of the porno-femdom expectations. (Not a surprise about the kinks. For example, nearly half of women do have Femdom fantasies.)

There's a third more important factor, but I'll come to that.

Now, remember when Mr A started handing over power to her? This chicken is coming home to roost:

Alarm bells are going off in my head. Is this too fast? I don't want to ruin it, after all we still haven't even made it to Roma, but then again, I don't want to try to exert any control and consequently ruin as well. I think the answer is, as I've answered every question to myself along this journey is "What would a Servus do?"

"..really pushy in ways that I wasn't
prepared to go." 

And two more chickens:

I'm pretty sure I just ruined it. She still hadn't read the book and was getting really pushy in ways that I wasn't prepared to go. Sure I have service as a fantasy and I thought Roma was the perfect solution. A way to escape to a fantasy. However, FLR is not something I'm prepared to do.

I kept it all to myself, but I started feeling hurt that it's been a month and she still couldn't be bothered to read your book... She... pressed to know what was wrong. I tried to delicately explain that I was hurt she hadn't bothered to read the book.

She accused me of topping from the bottom and ruining it again. I disagree, I feel like it's a mutual respect issue.

Add on top of that I'm feeling pretty moody due fact that I'm being good and only having pleasure in her presence (days 4 and 5 seem to be tough). I'm starting to really doubt the long term efficacy of this whole thing.

At this point things have gone well offtrack!

Mr A has accidentally handed over relationship power to her, and she's gleefully exploiting it. He is getting Femdom, mostly thanks to the kinds of techniques described in Vanilla Dominatrix, but still pestering her to read the book he shouldn't really have given her. Meanwhile the chastity is driving him nuts.

I've been there!

At this point things have gone
well offtrack! 

He's having an intense experience and actually handling it better than I would. Submission is both addictive and terrifying. The more we experience it, the more we lose control, which, if we normal, sends is into a kind of panic. This is especially true if the D&S has gotten into the normal relationship. So we claw for control by "topping from the bottom", hence I think Mr A clinging to the idea that she should read the book.

At this point I was starting to feel guilty! If only I'd been more forthcoming when our exchange began! If only I'd said some of the stuff I've just written down here! So I belatedly sat down and wrote a long response, basically telling him to talk to her and set some boundaries.

Thankfully, it worked:

So I took your advice. Talked it over with her, played the long game and it's paid off. She's been awesome and playful, really coming into her own. I've been really good with my promise to her and she's told me it's brought the passion back. Which in turn seems to have lit her furnace.

She wants the fun to continue!

Buy Getting Her to be a Vanilla Dominatrix!

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I'm down to 10% of the orgasms I've had previously, while hers are way up.
In the last couple weeks my "vanilla" wife revealed kinks to me that made me blush. I had no idea! She's planning a weekend away from the kids for us to explore... sounds like it's going to be one of those "be careful what you wish for" type of scenarios. I can't wait!
Thanks again for the solid advice!

The important thing here is that once your partner embraces Femdom, you actually have a good negotiating position. She wants the fun stuff to continue.

So Mr A has had an epic journey, and -- ultimately -- navigated it with guts and honesty.

On the face of it, he's been fantastically lucky. What good fortune to just happen to marry a woman with dommish fantasies? 

However, let's look at another one...

Mr R from Reddit takes it up the ass

Ages back, I sent a review copy of Vanilla Dominatrix to Mr R of Reddit. Recently we had a quick chat via PM:

Me:Did it work?

"She's become quite
the assfreak"

Mr R: Hi there!
Yes-in a way. I learned that I didn't necessarily want to truly dominated as much as I wanted a more aggressive and creative partner. I especially wanted to engage in some assplay with me (which is being a domme, to a degree). So we talked about it, I bought a few toys, and the rest is history. She's become quite the assfreak, and her favorite thing is to use a toy on me while she sucks me. That drives me wild, which in turn drives her wild. I see some pegging in my future.
So-yes it worked, but not in the way I initially envisioned. But I'm quite happy. Sometimes, when you explore, you wind up in a different place than where you initially envisioned, you know?

Me: Yes indeed. The main thing is to engage with the other person. So very glad things worked out for you.

Mr A: Yes-It's interesting. I was afraid to tell her about my love of assplay. But once I did she chided me for not telling her earlier.

So my book Vanilla Dominatrix actually put him off broad submission! This is really a win, since the idea is to be happy in bed, not freaked out or mired in mutual awkwardness.

Even so, look at what happened. He tentatively approached his wife for some assplay and she turned out to be an "assfreak". 

You'd think that kind of thing only happens in porn. However it is, mercifully, more common than you'd think. Here's why...

What's going on? Our kink is us!

...kink is just an extension of an activity
we'd do anyway... Sticking a collar on
just takes it to the next level. 
Buy Getting Her to be a Vanilla Dominatrix!

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People often treat their kink as if it were toxic waste; something external that just happens to have stuck to them.

Some regard it as a terrible blight -- if only I could clean off this radioactive goo, I could become normal again! -- others as a kind of super power -- OMG! Look at me orgasm thanks to this glowing stuff!

I'm pretty sure that the truth is usually different. Yes, of course, very specific fetishes can be a bit random and have clear external causes. However, our brains don't contain special kink organs. 

Our kink is us. 

If we're honest with ourselves, then our kink is just an extension of an activity we'd do anyway given a chance. For example, I've always liked looking after women. Sticking a collar on just takes it to the next level. 

...there's often no real
converting to do! 

No wonder then that kinksters often easily convert their partners -- there's often no real converting to do! 

Take Mr and Mrs A. She clearly enjoys flirting and teasing and he clearly enjoys being on the other end of it. They were already erotically compatible, which is why they married in the first place. Adding kinky power exchange doesn't change the relationship, just takes it to another place (Roma!).

Meanwhile, we don't know much about her, but perhaps Mrs R "likes it dirty", or enjoys heaping small indignities on her sexual partner. 

Perhaps both ladies hides these urges. It doesn't matter. Meet Shop Window Theory:

So, both of you put calm in the shop
window, but have a backroom
full of rage.

The book “Families and how to survive them” by Robin Skynner and John Cleese has a section on Shop Window Theory: “It’s the front that attracts them—the shop window. But the front's the way it is because of what's behind.” 

The idea is that, when courting, people with issues put the opposite in the “shop window”. This isn't a sinister thing, just what happens when people make an effort.

So, for example, if you have issues with anger, you might do your best to appear the way you want to be: super calm. Then, joy! You meet a lady who is tranquility personified. A whirlwind romance leads to marriage. Unfortunately, she appears tranquil because she’s determined not to be ruled by her anger. So, both of you put calm in the shop window, but have a backroom full of rage.

(Whoops.)

In a functional relationship, this can really work out. You understand each other’s issues, and both know where you’re trying to go. 

In a dysfunctional relationship, the demons escape your respective backrooms and… breed. The worst of it is that it somehow feels right to let yourselves be carried off into the darkness. Relationships like this usually end up as abusive. But what about in a Femdom relationship?

Quoted from Vanilla Dominatrix [iTunes][Epub][Kindle][UK Kindle][Nook][PDF]

Buy the ultimate vanilla-to-femdom

how-to book right now!

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So, even if both couples hid their potentially kinky sides from themselves and each other (which we don't know they did), then they still end up together. 

Perhaps Mr A was all "Sex now please!" and Mrs A was all "Coming right up!" 

Perhaps Mr and Mrs R were all hygiene and shaved pubes? 

It doesn't matter. Put it up front or hide it in the back, you still end up with a compatible partner.

So, the real take home is: you're still you during kink. It follows that the kink you most need is probably already there in your relationship, you just need to persuade your partner to stick a collar on it, or a chastity device, or...

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Don't resign yourself to just getting off on other people's adventures! When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her.